The Long Way Home
by Okami Yuurei
Summary: SasuxOC "He'll be back... I'm sure of it..." May be taken as slightly OOC. Dedicated to my good friend, To-to. She wanted it more lovey-dovey, but this is as close to that as she's gonna get... No flames. Reviews are greatly appreciated.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, yada yada yada...**

**The Long Way Home**

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A very short one-shot story dedicated to my good friend, To-To the flying dog.

Requested: March 3, 2008

Completed: March 13, 2008

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**...And so it Begins...**

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'He'll be here...'

Hachiko sat, patiently awaiting his return like she always did. She hadn't seen him for more than three years now, yet, still she waited. Whether it was out of mere habit or out of hopeless devotion, no one knew. But every day was the same. She would walk to the bridge early in the morning and sit on the railing, all day, until the clock in the Hokage's tower struck midnight. Only then would she leave her post at the water's edge.

'He said he'd be here...'

She would pass towns people in the morning as they opened up their shops for business. They would ask if he had returned yet, but she would smile sadly and reply, "No, not yet. But he'll come back. I'm certain of it." But he never did. By the time the last few bars were closing up for the night, the barkeeps would see her walking back to her apartment, down hearted and alone.

Never once did she doubt that he was coming back. Never once did she let her devotion to him falter. Never once had she feared that he would not remember her. She kept her faith and prayed every day that today would be the day he would return to her; holding onto the only strand of hope she had left.

'He promised...'

It had been three years since anyone had see Hachiko really smile or be happy. Her closest friends were beginning to worry that something was horribly wrong. Even the mention of his name now triggered silent tears under the mask of her optimism, though she grinned and bore it all those years. She wouldn't answer when they called her name, she'd sigh when they asked if she was ok, she'd wave them off if they invited her to dinner. It was almost as if she was in a trance. Then, one day, near the end of the third winter she had spent without him, she finally snapped.

'Damn it, Sasuke... You _promised_!'

Hachiko stood on the old bridge, her slender sixteen-year-old body unprotected from the battering cold of the wind and snow of winter. She didn't care. She just stared at her reflection on the surface of the water, horrified by what the years had done to her. The sullen look about her once bright, cheerful green eyes haunted her most about her own transformation. The lighthearted, bubbly thirteen-year-old was gone, replaced by the fragile, lachrymose woman she saw in the water. She was certain that if he saw her now, he wouldn't know her at all. Then, all at once, her emotions overwhelmed her self-control and she cried out, slamming her fists on the icy rail in anguish. The likeness of herself in the water had disappeared in a spate of ripples, blurred now by the fresh tears streaming from her pale face.

"Damn it, Sasuke!" she yelled, her eyes closed tightly as if it was too painful to look at herself in the water any longer. "You promised! 'Just a year. I'll be back after a year,' you said! But now it's been three years! Three goddamn long years since then! You lied! You said you'd come back..." She trailed off and sunk to the snow blanketed ground; any angry words she would have shouted were drowned out by heart-wrenching sobs. Hachiko just sat there, hugging her knees to her chest, shaking and weeping silently as she rested her head on her knees. She didn't want to wait any longer. She didn't want to hurt anymore. She didn't want to miss him. She couldn't take it.

She stood, her face wiped clean of all emotion, her ivy green eyes glazed over with emptiness. Even he couldn't save her now. If he even showed up, he would have been three years too late, anyway. Calmly she stood atop the railing and gazed down on the frigid water below. Smiling faintly, Hachiko leaned forward and braced herself for the cold that would likely be the end of that long wait and everything else. In a second, she felt herself falling, and then, a pair of arms caught her before she hit the water. She looked up to see someone, dressed in a gray winter traveling cloak whose hood covered the person's face. The person set her down on the icy embankment and got out of the water.

"Moron," the figure said, dusting snow off of his coat. The voice sounded familiar. "I told you to wait for me _by_ the river, not _in_ it." With that he took off his hood, revealing the very face she had yearned to see for so long.

"...S-Sasuke..." she whispered, as he smiled down at her. "You...you..." With a cry of more anger than joy, she grabbed him from the collar of his shirt and pulled his face down to her eye level. "You bastard! You said _one_ year! One goddamn year! But no! You just _had_ to stay longer-"

Sasuke sighed. "You talk too much," he said, smirking, and silenced her with a kiss. Hachiko calmed down instantaneously. Oh, how she had missed his kisses.

"So..." she asked as she hugged him tightly, afraid that if she let go, she would lose him again. "What took you so long?"

Sasuke smiled and kissed her gently on the top of her head. "I guess I just took the long way home."

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Author's Note: Can't say this is my best work, but whatever. Okay, yeah. It was a corny ending, I know, but I ran out of ideas. So what! SUE ME! (No, not really, please don't... ) Oh well. Reviews are appreciated. Con-crit is better than flames.

Thanks tons, Okami


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